Great Dames

"Andrew did an amazing job designing a new website for Great Dames. His design provided a fresh look, greater focus and improved functionality. We're getting great feedback from our current audience and attracting new members to the Great Dames community."

Sharon Kelly Hake

President & Co-Founder

The Challenge

Great Dames is a Philadelphia, PA-based community that connects and empowers women through unique programs.

While the organization is expanding, its original website had fallen out of date in recent years—making it difficult to attract new members and sponsors online.

The Solution

I collaborated with co-founder Sharon Kelly Hake to develop a website that addressed some key technical issues, clarified messaging, and highlighted many of the inspiring stories that Great Dames have to share.

Scalability was an important goal, so I created both a simple Squarespace site and a more customized WordPress option for when Great Dames is ready to expand further.

The Results

Unlike the previous website, Squarespace allows the Great Dames team to easily add content and make changes.

This means no more messing around with code! (Everything can be edited visually.) 😀

The new site features over twenty stories from Great Dames, and simplifies the process of registering for events, becoming a sponsor, and simply getting in touch.

Consistent, Modern Design

One of our biggest goals for the project was to improve the visual organization and branding of the Great Dames website.

I used Adriene (serif) for larger headlines and Eaves (sans-serif) for paragraphs to improve readability and give a combined sense of stately simplicity.

High-quality photography 📷 is also used throughout, which allows people to see Great Dames in action—and visualize themselves connecting with real members.

Interactive Features

Information is great, but we also wanted to give people lots of different ways to actively engage with Great Dames.

While visiting the site, users can sign up for newsletter updates, get in touch through strategically-placed contact forms, and even share their own Great Dames story.

Great Dames social accounts are now connected to make content more sharable, and each page is connected to Google Analytics to allow for in-depth tracking of key stats (most-visited,bounce rate, etc).